Our Maternity Session Surprise

A little over six weeks ago, Sonja Stafford of Dolce Vita Photo Boutique did our maternity session and took some beautiful photos of my growing family (and growing belly…haha). Little did we know that the night after that session, our feisty little lady would start trying to make her way into this world. Let’s talk about some crazy timing!! She made that happen super early on the morning of March 29th, and our plans to move to Texas the following week quickly changed! There will be much more about her in a future blog post including her much anticipated newborn photos, but now, I want to focus on our maternity session with Sonja. We did our maternity session a bit earlier than I normally would have, due to the timing of our move down to Texas. Because our baby girl was “Made in Alaska”, it was important to me that our maternity photos were done here also. With all of the major moving chaos, each of our crazy schedules and the wonky Alaskan weather, I am SO glad that we were able to schedule them when we did. It was also really important to me to work with a photographer that I could connect well with on this session, as I hoped to have a great recommendation for all my past clients. In my opinion, being able to connect well with your photographer is a HUGE factor to the success of your photo session. You want to make sure they bring out the best in you, and make you feel as comfortable as possible in front of the camera (especially for me spending most my time behind the lens). Let’s just say that from the beginning is was clear that we would connect incredibly well. I wish we had started hanging out together much sooner! Though our photography styles are a bit different, I feel like we see photography in the same light, and aspire to offer the same experience to each of our clients. It’s special to share a passion like that with someone! Sonja was wonderful about brain storming session ideas and locations. We even met up a few times to hang and check out possible locations. My husband and I really wanted to capture as much of the incredible beauty of Alaska in our maternity session. I’m very pleased that even though the wind was INSANELY STRONG everywhere we went, Sonja was able to make that happen for us. AND, she even made me feel fabulous all through out the session. Any expecting woman knows THAT is extremely important when you’re carrying extra weight around the middle! ;-) We included our first (fur) baby in the session, worked with the wind as best we could, and made our way towards/down our favorite road in all of Alaska. Sonja even managed to wrap up our session by capturing a few photos of us standing smack dab in the middle of the Seward Highway! SO for all my many amazing clients that are looking for someone new to capture beautiful moments, be sure to contact Sonja with Dolce Vita Photo Boutique. She just opened up a large, yet charming studio space in the historic arts district of downtown Anchorage last week, and I’m excited to see her do great things in the near future. I like to think that I have pretty high standards for the entire photography experience, and it’s great to be able to recommend her with confidence!